The invention relates to an envelope-filling apparatus for mail-processing machines, having:
a carrier hand which is connected to a machine framework such that it can be pivoted via a pivot-lever arrangement;
a pivot drive which acts on the pivot-lever arrangement and causes the carrier hand, to move back and forth;
a push-in-finger arrangement which is connected pivotably to the carrier hand and, in a guide-controlled manner, can be lowered in an operating stroke, and raised in a return stroke, relative to the carrier hand, as the latter moves back and forth, and is loaded in the direction of the lowered position by prestressing means;
a baseplate onto which enclosures which are to be inserted into envelopes are conveyed and over which the push-in-finger ends, loaded by the prestressing means, are guided; and
an envelope-feed arrangement which conveys envelopes into a region in the vicinity of the baseplate and holds said envelopes ready in the open state for the insertion of enclosures.
Conventional envelope-filling apparatuses contain, as the pivot-lever arrangement, a pivot lever which is mounted pivotably on the framework at the top end and of which the bottom end is designed as a carrier hand for the mounting of a push-in-finger arrangement. A sufficient length of the pivot lever achieves the situation where the bottom end of the pivot lever, during pivoting movements produced by the pivot drive, describes a circle arc of sufficiently large radius, with the result that the pivot pin of the pivot-lever arrangement, in the operating stroke, is moved over the baseplate of the envelope-filling apparatus at a distance which, during the pivoting movement of the pivot lever, only changes to an extent for which it is possible to compensate by the push-in fingers, loaded by prestressing means, of the push-in-finger arrangement, with the result that an enclosure which is to be inserted into an envelope can be pushed, by the free ends of the push-in fingers, from the baseplate into open envelopes.
In certain cases, for example with differing thicknesses of an enclosure stack which is to be inserted into envelopes and/or with differing properties of the envelopes used and/or with it being possible for the format of the enclosures and of the envelopes to be changed within comparatively low limits, it is necessary to vary the operating-stroke length executed by the outer ends of the push-in fingers, that is to say the push-in depth executed.
Use has already been made of a push-in-finger arrangement in which the push-in fingers had a section which ran, in the vicinity of the ends thereof, approximately parallel to the baseplate in terms of the positioning during the operating stroke and along which push-in-finger elements were provided such that they could be adjusted and secured in the longitudinal direction of said section.
For the purpose of adjusting the push-in depth, it was necessary, in the case of this known design, to adjust individually the individual push-in elements on all push-in fingers, that is to say for example on three push-in fingers of a push-in-finger arrangement, in order, during the operating stroke of the push-in-finger arrangement, for an enclosure or an enclosure stack to be pushed to a greater or lesser extent into the envelope which is held,ready.
The object of the present invention is to configure an envelope-filling apparatus of the type defined in the introduction such that it is possible to adjust quickly and straightforwardly the depths to which enclosures or enclosure stacks can be pushed into an open envelope, it being possible for said push-in depths to be changed within predetermined limits.
This object is achieved according to the invention by the features of the accompanying claim 1. Advantageous configurations and developments are characterized in the claims subordinate to claim 1 and, without the wording thereof being repeated here specifically, the contents of these claims hereby expressly form a constituent part of the description.
It should be noted here that the design of the pivot-lever arrangement of an envelope-filling apparatus as a three-lever rectilinear-guidance mechanism is known per se, but that the use of a three-lever rectilinear-guidance mechanism in the present case combines very advantageously with the rest of the characterizing features of the accompanying claim 1 since the change in the distance between the point of articulation of the carrier hand to the longer lever and the point of articulation of the carrier hand for the push-in-finger arrangement in the three-lever rectilinear-guidance mechanism has comparatively little influence on the rectilinear-guidance property in particular at the end of the operating stroke and, consequently, the satisfactory guidance of the push-in-finger arrangement is not put at risk by the adjustment.
For this reason, it is not necessary, during the common adjustment of the push-in depth of the push-in-finger arrangement, to select, instead of a pivot-lever arrangement, an actuating apparatus, for the pivot-lever arrangement, with highly geometrical rectilinear guidance and the associated, increased technical outlay.